"Rule of Law"?? - "Rule of Fool" !!
Hey Folks,
The next time some pompous ass goes on about "Democracy," or "the Rule of Law," and how sacred they are or how they are the reason/justification for Mr. Pompous Ass's latest effort; spit on him.
As I've said many times here before, paraphrasing Leona Helmsley: as far as the ginks on top are concerned; taxes, morality, ethics, compassion, integrity, and both Democracy and "the rule of Law" are for the little people.
If the Bush regime in general hasn't made that point clearly enough, read the article below about a specific lost opportunity to defend democracy and the rule of law.
- Uke Man
November 24, 2006
When Votes Disappear
By PAUL KRUGMAN
You know what really had me terrified on Nov.
7? The all-too-real possibility of a highly
suspect result. What would we have done if the
Republicans had held onto the House by a
narrow margin, but circumstantial evidence
strongly suggested that a combination of vote
suppression and defective — or rigged —
electronic voting machines made the difference?
Fortunately, it wasn’t a close election. But
the fact that our electoral systemworked well
enough to register an overwhelming
Democratic landslide doesn’t mean that things
are O.K. There were many problems with
voting in this election — and in at least one
Congressional race, the evidence strongly
suggests that paperless voting machines failed
to count thousands of votes, and that the
disappearance of these votes delivered the
race to the wrong candidate.
Here’s the background: Florida’s 13th
Congressional District is currently represented
by Katherine Harris, who as Florida’s secretary
of state during the 2000 recount famously
acted as a partisan Republican rather than a fair referee.
This year Ms. Harris didn’t run for re-election,
making an unsuccessful bid for the Senate
instead. But according to the official vote count,
the Republicans held on to her seat, with Vern
Buchanan, the G.O.P. candidate, narrowly
defeating Christine Jennings, the Democrat.
The problem is that the official vote count isn’t
credible. In much of the 13th District, the voting
pattern looks normal. But in Sarasota County,
which used touch-screen voting machines made
by Election Systems and Software, almost
18,000 voters — nearly 15 percent of those who
cast ballots using the machines — supposedly
failed to vote for either candidate in the hotly
contested Congressional race. That compares
with undervote rates ranging from 2.2 to 5.3
percent in neighboring counties.
Reporting by The Herald-Tribune of Sarasota,
which interviewed hundreds of voters who
called the paper to report problems at the polls,
strongly suggests that the huge apparent
undervote was caused by bugs in the ES&S software.
About a third of those interviewed by the paper
reported that they couldn’t even find the
Congressional race on the screen. This could
conceivably have been the result of bad ballot
design, but many of them insisted that they
looked hard for the race. Moreover, more
than 60 percent of those interviewed by
The Herald-Tribune reported that they did
cast a vote in the Congressional race —
but that this vote didn’t show up on the ballot
summary page they were shown at the end
of the voting process.
If there were bugs in the software, the odds
are that they threw the election to the wrong
candidate. An Orlando Sentinel examination
of other votes cast by those who supposedly
failed to cast a vote in the Congressional
race shows that they strongly favored
Democrats, and Mr. Buchanan won the official
count by only 369 votes. The fact that
Mr. Buchanan won a recount — that is, a
recount of the votes the machines happened
to record — means nothing.
Although state officials have certified
Mr. Buchanan as the victor, they’ve
promised an audit of the voting machines.
But don’t get your hopes up: as in2000,
state election officials aren’t even trying to
look impartial. To oversee the audit, the state
has chosen as its “independent” expert
Prof. Alec Yasinsac of Florida State University —
a Republican partisan who made an appearance
on the steps of the Florida Supreme Court
during the 2000 recount battle wearing a
“Bush Won” sign.
Ms. Jennings has now filed suit with the same
court, demanding a new election. She deserves one.
But for the nation as a whole, the important
thing isn’t who gets seated to represent
Florida’s 13th District. It’s whether the voting
disaster there leads to legislation requiring
voter verification and a paper trail.
And I have to say that the omens aren’t good.
I’ve been shocked at how little national
attention the mess in Sarasota has received.
Here we have as clear a demonstration as
we’re ever likely to see that warnings from
computer scientists about the dangers of
paperless electronic voting are valid — and most
Americans probably haven’t even heard about it.
As far as I can tell, the reason Florida-13 hasn’t
become a major national story is that neither
control of Congress nor control of the White
House is on the line. But do we have to wait for
a constitutional crisis to realize that we’re in
danger of becoming a digital-age banana republic?
The next time some pompous ass goes on about "Democracy," or "the Rule of Law," and how sacred they are or how they are the reason/justification for Mr. Pompous Ass's latest effort; spit on him.
As I've said many times here before, paraphrasing Leona Helmsley: as far as the ginks on top are concerned; taxes, morality, ethics, compassion, integrity, and both Democracy and "the rule of Law" are for the little people.
If the Bush regime in general hasn't made that point clearly enough, read the article below about a specific lost opportunity to defend democracy and the rule of law.
- Uke Man
November 24, 2006
When Votes Disappear
By PAUL KRUGMAN
You know what really had me terrified on Nov.
7? The all-too-real possibility of a highly
suspect result. What would we have done if the
Republicans had held onto the House by a
narrow margin, but circumstantial evidence
strongly suggested that a combination of vote
suppression and defective — or rigged —
electronic voting machines made the difference?
Fortunately, it wasn’t a close election. But
the fact that our electoral systemworked well
enough to register an overwhelming
Democratic landslide doesn’t mean that things
are O.K. There were many problems with
voting in this election — and in at least one
Congressional race, the evidence strongly
suggests that paperless voting machines failed
to count thousands of votes, and that the
disappearance of these votes delivered the
race to the wrong candidate.
Here’s the background: Florida’s 13th
Congressional District is currently represented
by Katherine Harris, who as Florida’s secretary
of state during the 2000 recount famously
acted as a partisan Republican rather than a fair referee.
This year Ms. Harris didn’t run for re-election,
making an unsuccessful bid for the Senate
instead. But according to the official vote count,
the Republicans held on to her seat, with Vern
Buchanan, the G.O.P. candidate, narrowly
defeating Christine Jennings, the Democrat.
The problem is that the official vote count isn’t
credible. In much of the 13th District, the voting
pattern looks normal. But in Sarasota County,
which used touch-screen voting machines made
by Election Systems and Software, almost
18,000 voters — nearly 15 percent of those who
cast ballots using the machines — supposedly
failed to vote for either candidate in the hotly
contested Congressional race. That compares
with undervote rates ranging from 2.2 to 5.3
percent in neighboring counties.
Reporting by The Herald-Tribune of Sarasota,
which interviewed hundreds of voters who
called the paper to report problems at the polls,
strongly suggests that the huge apparent
undervote was caused by bugs in the ES&S software.
About a third of those interviewed by the paper
reported that they couldn’t even find the
Congressional race on the screen. This could
conceivably have been the result of bad ballot
design, but many of them insisted that they
looked hard for the race. Moreover, more
than 60 percent of those interviewed by
The Herald-Tribune reported that they did
cast a vote in the Congressional race —
but that this vote didn’t show up on the ballot
summary page they were shown at the end
of the voting process.
If there were bugs in the software, the odds
are that they threw the election to the wrong
candidate. An Orlando Sentinel examination
of other votes cast by those who supposedly
failed to cast a vote in the Congressional
race shows that they strongly favored
Democrats, and Mr. Buchanan won the official
count by only 369 votes. The fact that
Mr. Buchanan won a recount — that is, a
recount of the votes the machines happened
to record — means nothing.
Although state officials have certified
Mr. Buchanan as the victor, they’ve
promised an audit of the voting machines.
But don’t get your hopes up: as in2000,
state election officials aren’t even trying to
look impartial. To oversee the audit, the state
has chosen as its “independent” expert
Prof. Alec Yasinsac of Florida State University —
a Republican partisan who made an appearance
on the steps of the Florida Supreme Court
during the 2000 recount battle wearing a
“Bush Won” sign.
Ms. Jennings has now filed suit with the same
court, demanding a new election. She deserves one.
But for the nation as a whole, the important
thing isn’t who gets seated to represent
Florida’s 13th District. It’s whether the voting
disaster there leads to legislation requiring
voter verification and a paper trail.
And I have to say that the omens aren’t good.
I’ve been shocked at how little national
attention the mess in Sarasota has received.
Here we have as clear a demonstration as
we’re ever likely to see that warnings from
computer scientists about the dangers of
paperless electronic voting are valid — and most
Americans probably haven’t even heard about it.
As far as I can tell, the reason Florida-13 hasn’t
become a major national story is that neither
control of Congress nor control of the White
House is on the line. But do we have to wait for
a constitutional crisis to realize that we’re in
danger of becoming a digital-age banana republic?
1 Comments:
HI Tom,
Absolutely ridiculous. How about the 1050 votes Pryce won by here in my district? Sondra
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home